


we kindle and char

by daredoll



Series: a pirate's life, every single day [1]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Pirates of the Caribbean AU, calypso!uma, elizabeth swann!evie, eventual sea3vie but they're /children/ atm so, jack sparrow!harry, sea3vie, will turner!gil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 04:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13539621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredoll/pseuds/daredoll
Summary: it all starts with a shipwreck. or maybe it started decades before. or maybe it begins in a decade more. but, above all, it begins.





	we kindle and char

The call of a soft velvet voice draws in the sea, it has for untold years, but this one is different. Its tone rattles between ancient ribs and pulls at ever-young skin, and she may be young, as far as spirits went, but she knows that it can’t be simple coincidence. This day the goddess bears an especially precious burden upon her back. The boy is young, only a year past his first decade, and his tawny curls, slick with salt water, cling to the soft planes of his cheekbones, not yet hardened by experience or age. Even so young, the boy is grand of stature and with the beginnings of enviable muscles rippling along his arms. He is the son of a disgraced sailor, a pirate who had thrown her domain away in favor of the wooded shores and its game, but the boy is  **_hers_ ** , was made so the moment the  _ Jolly Roger _ plundered the ship whose deck he had found solace on. Uma has claimed him, saw the sun in his eyes and decided that this one would not be dragged to her depths.

The deity had guided his heavy body onto the broken planks, brushed salt-sweet lips across his temple in a blessing he would always carry with him. Now, she carries him behind her, to safety, to the shore, to---- to the voice. 

Divine eyes are not the only ones watching him, though. Irises like the clearest of her waters follow his form on the rising tide through the lens of a spyglass. From the crow’s nest of the  _ Jolly Roger _ , a boy, closer to being a man than her chosen but still not quite there, watches, charged with alerting his father at once upon the discovery of a survivor of their massacre. He does nothing of the sort, takes a shallow, almost hopeful breath rather. Once the boys had been as thick as thieves, and even years later Harry Hook recognizes his old playmate by the gold on his head and the size he’s inherited from his deserter of a father. A smile, so rarely seen when not touched by the beginnings of madness and their captain’s descended cruelty, crawls onto sharp features, and the quiet breath is released with great relief. He’s  **_alive_ ** .

The vision in the water with him is indescribable, still, like the kraken of his father’s ghost stories and the mermaids of Smee’s tall tales, and the pirate lad is utterly transfixed. As if sensing his gaze, she turns, spots him easily through the fog and cloud. Through the glass of the lens they study each other, neither doing much of anything before the being nods an ethereal face and dives deep again into the blue sea. It’s a sight he’ll never forget

Harry keeps his silent watch as the board and its passenger rises and falls with the waves, never even once coming close to capsizing. Practically out of nowhere comes the stern of a great naval ship, its arrival veiled so perfectly by the heavy fog. One even to rival his father’s ( and after such a war they had already waged, more than a threat to them ) and as he feels his father’s hands at the helm, sailing them away, the last lilting chords of a pirate’s song reach his ears. Where he was about to climb down from his perch to join the crew’s work, he hesitates, glances one last time toward the boy, the sea, and the ship.

Inky black waves, berry lips, and all her finery, Harry finds her through his spyglass after he hears her. He sneers to keep his eyes from betraying him, and swings down to the deck. The brawny boy is alive. That was all he wanted to know anyway.

And finally, it’s on her way to a new home that it starts,  **_everything starts_ ** , even though she doesn’t know it yet. She won’t know it for more than a decade more, either, but she will remember the day. How the fog had roiled and hugged their ship on its course, the mist cool and eerie as the governor’s daughter had sang a weary pirate’s song into it. She’d heard it earlier in the journey, hummed under the breaths of the sea-worn sailors who manned the vessel, and while nothing about the rough men had drawn much of her attention, the song had entranced her young heart.

“My heart is pierced by cupid. 

         I disdain all glittering gold. 

                    There is nothing can console me 

                                but my jolly sailor bold.”

As if on cue, as if summoned from the depths below comes a body, held aloft by broken boards. The girl stifles a scream.  _ Not a body but a soul !  _ She does scream this time, gesturing wildly over the rail to draw attention, to save his life. Evie is swept up in the flurry of action, but she doesn’t miss the aqua tentacles and dark skin she’d nearly spotted overseeing the entire rescue attempt, almost like a guardian. The sailors act rapidly to catch hold of the boy and haul him up to the deck, and by the time that she is sure that he’s safe, the angel’s slipped away. She convinces herself the vision was just a hallucination, a dream, as she grows older but she never, never forgets.

As the only woman aboard, caring for the castaway becomes her task, but a ruby mouth marked by curiosity does nothing to object. In the deserted cabin she pats his brow and bundles him in the rough blankets brought to them. Appraising eyes ponder his features and find them far from wanting. Where her lovely, conniving mother would never approve, Evie finds she does, and as she leans over him to brush a curl behind his ear, she spots a gold medallion, engraved with a gruesome skull and strange etchings, hanging from his chest. It’s then that the admiral bursts through the door to check up on the pair, and in one fluid motion, nimble fingers break the chain ( weak, just what she would expect from a pirate. The thought thrills her bones. A real life pirate ! ) and hide the token behind her back.

Startled by the sudden noise, sandy eyes burst open, followed by a barrage of thick, wet coughs and a shuddering breath as his entire body is wracked by shivers. Evie rushes to help him, her eyes only for the boy before her even as the admiral watches the two .

  
“It’s alright. You’re alright,” she assures, voice as soft as a caress. He stills as the hand not clutching the necklace reaches for his sturdier one, and she squeezes his fingers, meeting his sluggish gaze with a soft smile. “I’m Evie Grimhilde. I’m watching over you.” He blinks slowly, she imagines that he must be clearing the sea from his mind.

“Gil,” he introduces himself. His eyes are gentle as fawn lashes flutter to stay awake. She runs her thumb across the skin of his palm, and he loses his fight to remain conscious slowly, even as three words escape his lips. “I’m Gil Legume.”

**Author's Note:**

> I thought watching potc would get me in the mood to write my other fics and instead ?? it made me write this ?? this is going to be a series of one-shots loosely following (and occasionally very closely following) the events of the curse of the black pearl.
> 
> buckle up, kids, because i'm a slut for this au already !!


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